Russ Adams and Gigi Edgley talk Creatures and competition

“They were completely under serious pressure,” says Gigi Edgley about the competitors on Jim Henson’s Creature Shop Challenge. “You try so hard to be the good guy, and I didn’t want to come off the way I did in the first episode,” says Russ Adams on his fight with Tina Roland. “I think that the pressure was the situation there” in the first episode when everyone was trying to show their worth. “I think in a regular situation, we wouldn’t have had to deal with the same pressure,” says Adams. Of course, Edgley faced her own challenges. When the eliminations happened on Jim Henson’s Creature Shop Challenge, it was hard for Edgley to remain neutral. “We’re on the same team,” says Edgley. Adams says that on the show the contestants began to stop worrying about who was going home and worried more about Edgley. He says that no one wanted to see her cry. The producers asked her whether she wanted note cards for the run through or if she could work from memory. She asked what hosts normally do. Edgley says that the exchange went something like this: “’Most hosts get a teleprompter.’ “Can I get that? “‘No.’” Edgley opted for going from memory once it was explained that she wouldn’t get to keep the notecards during the actual taping. She didn’t want to get used to the movements that would come from holding the cards. “It takes a whole team to make a one [creature],” says Edgley. “We do very little as a tribe anymore.” There is something special about coming to work together. “A lot of those creatures had a lot more soul than some of the actors I worked with,” says Edgley. That was a joke, or was it? “You got a dozen personalities who are trying to come together as one,” says Adams. Puppeteers will talk through their creatures to each other and others even on break. Edgley says that if you watch the video, Robert Bennett has a moment of ‘Oh, I didn’t win. Wait a minute. Did they say my name?’ Adams says that “Robert deserved” the win. Edgley was concerned about appearing on reality TV. “It frustrates me that they [reality TV] are taking over actors’ jobs,” says Edgley. After meeting the people at the Creature Shop, she felt better about the job. “Jim Henson was an amazing visionary,” says Edgley. “It’s refreshing to come to conventions where we can throw away all of our nonsense,” says Edgley.